Five Fun Things You Can Do With Core Set 2019 – Planeswalker Decks

Jeff Zandi is a level 2 judge and an eight-time veteran of the Pro Tour. He has written continuously about Magic for over eighteen years. His team, the Texas Guildmages, have the longest running regular game in history, meeting at his home every Tuesday night since 1996.

We’re deep into summertime fun. That means spending time poolside with bikini babes and muscular man-scaped bros. Or, if your primary addiction is Magic: the Gathering, maybe you stay inside like me and play with your cards. Core Set 2019 arrived in stores a week ago after a more-fun-than-expected prerelease weekend. Wizards of the Coast thought they were done with core sets three years ago when they produced Magic Origins. Then, after being distracted by some shiny object, they changed their minds and, voila! Core sets are back.

I’m an optimist and while I’d like to say it’s a decision I made somewhere along the way I know it’s genetic. I get smarmy about stuff but I can’t honestly stay mad at my friends, pretty much no matter what. Even my friends at Wizards of the Coast. When I learned that Summer 2018 was going to feature a new core set, I rolled my eyes so hard that my reading glasses fell off. Then I got over it. When new Magic sets come out, I get excited. I mean real Magic sets, not specialty products like Battlebond or Conspiracy or Planechase (it’s amazing that I even know these names). I’m not judging these other fine quality WOTC products, I’m just telling you where I’m at personally.

Having decided to make the most of Core Set 2019, I’m dedicated to sharing with you Five Fun Things You Can Do With Core Set 2019. Part one was last week where I broke down the commons and uncommons of M19 with respect to sealed deck. Sealed deck, and specifically prerelease sealed deck, is the first fun thing you can do with a new set. What comes next? Planeswalker decks!

Well-positioned introductory Magic product or giant money grab? We’ll explore the possibilities together as we look at the one, two, three, four, FIVE different planeswalker decks produced for Core Set 2019. When I bought mine last Saturday afternoon, I asked the guy if the store had sold many of these things. He didn’t think they had. It makes me crazy that Wizards cooks up these planeswalker decks with new cards they make up out of thin air. Sure, if the planeswalker decks contained the “real” planeswalker in each color and the decks contained only the rares, uncommons and commons that can be found in Core Set 2019 booster packs there could be a problem. The challenge would be pricing them correctly ahead of Core Set’s release. Wizards claims these planeswalker deck products are put together the way they are in order to appeal to a certain level of gamer. They don’t want this introductory product to cost $30 apiece or more.

Here’s what I did when I got home with these decks. Stop me if I do anything weird. One by one, I unwrapped each deck and threw away the outer cardboard and then carefully removed the cellophane inner wrap. Then I smelled the cards. Then I each deck aside and focused on the booster pack that comes with each of these decks. Yeah! You get a free booster pack with each of these $15 planeswalker decks. After opening and inspecting all five decks, I did the next logical thing. I played ten matches, pitting each of the decks against each other, recording all of the gameplay. You know, just like anybody else.

What You Get in Each Deck

Each of the five decks contains sixty cards. Since each deck is mono-colored there’s no need for nonbasic lands. That’s okay, I’m somewhat excited to get some M19 basic lands since the booster packs have fewer basic lands in them. Each deck gets five rares, nine uncommons and twenty commons. The rares include four fake (ahem), I mean uniquely-designed rares including the foil planeswalker card. These uniquely-designed cards can only be found in these planeswalker decks, they don’t appear in booster packs.

As a matter of fact, each deck comes with six cards that are not available in Core Set 2019 booster packs. Along with your foil mythic rare planeswalker, each deck has three other rares that are unique to this deck. Each deck also comes with four copies of a unique common and three copies of a unique uncommon.

Four of the five decks include twenty-six basic lands. The Ajani deck is so aggressive that the expert deck builders back at HQ decided it could get by with just twenty-five basic lands. While each deck comes with exactly four rares and one foil mythic rare, you mind find it interesting that the decks have different numbers of uncommons and commons. The Liliana deck has fourteen uncommons and fifteen commons. The Sarkhan and Ajani decks each have ten uncommons, the Ajani deck has twenty commons while the Sarkhan deck has only nineteen. This is because the Ajani deck has one less basic land. The Vivien deck has nine uncommons and twenty commons, the Tezzeret deck has only eight uncommons to go with twenty-one commons.

Let’s break down each of the five decks. I’ll share each deck list as well as what I thought about the cards when I played them.

These decks are intended to be straight-forward, linear designs for players somewhat newer to Magic. Well then, this is the one you’re looking for! You get a little bit of ramp from a pair of Druid of the Cowl and a pair of Elvish Rejuvenators. With these cards, you’ll be casting six-drops in no time. There are two Colossal Dreadmaws (Wizards is pushing Colossal Dreadmaw SO HARD) as well as Aggressive Mammoth and, of course, your exclusive not-ready-for-prime-time planeswalker, Vivien of the Arkbow.

Playing a bunch of games with the deck, I’d say there are just about enough combat tricks and removal with two each Titanic Growth, Rabid Bite and Plummet. Rabid Bite is very important since, as a green deck, there aren’t going to be very many creature-removal options. Of course, this deck has two colorless cards, Meteor Golem, that can help you remove a creature from the other side of the board. You won’t find a meatier Golem in all the land! Plummet is either a dead card in your hand or else a complete salvation. Green always has trouble with flyers.

Let’s talk about the fake, er, special cards uniquely designed for this planeswalker deck. The most important one is the foil planeswalker, Vivien of the Arkbow. It’s not terrible, in the context of the slower-to-develop style of each of these decks. She starts with five loyalty, that’s a lot. The first ability adds two loyalty and puts two +1/+1 counters on “up to one” target creature. That means that you can use this ability when you don’t have any creatures in play by choosing no creature to put counters on. I hope that never happens to you. I would probably concede and move on to the next game if I drew Vivien with no creatures in play. You can remove three loyalty counters to have one of your creatures Rabid Bite one of your opponent’s creatures. This is a very good ability if you have a large creature in play, and not so good otherwise. Vivien’s ultimate only lasts until the end of the turn, but giving your team +4/+4 and trample will do the trick most of the time.

Aggressive Mammoth is a rare 8/8 Elephant with trample for 3GGG that gives all your other creatures trample. This card is so good that I thought it MUST be a normal Magic card (the kind you can find in booster packs) but no, its collector’s number is 302, way past 280. Card number 280 is where the normal collection of cards in Core Set 2019 ends and the, uh, SPECIAL cards begin. This card is good enough that, like Pinocchio, it could one day become a real boy. Skalla Wolf is a rare 3/3 Wolf Spirit for 3GG. When this creature enters the battlefield you look at the top five cards of your library. You may reveal a green card from among those cards and put it into your hand, then you put the rest of the cards on the bottom of your library in a random order. All five decks have this effect, in some shape or fashion. It’s funny that this card, while almost always getting you a free card (it’s a mono green deck after all) also makes it harder to find a sixth land, if that’s issue at all. You’ll look at five cards, reveal and put a big green creature into your hand, and then bury two or three Forests on the bottom of your library. It’s still a useful effect, but it’s possible you wait to play it if what you really want on turn five is a sixth land.

Vivien’s Jaguar is an uncommon 3/2 Cat Spirit for 2G with reach. You can spend 2G to return this card to your hand from the graveyard if you have a Vivien planeswalker in play. I played a lot of games with this deck and never had the opportunity, or the desire, to return one of these from the graveyard. They are totally fine as a 3/2 on turn three. I don’t think reach helps these creatures much. You do get three copies of this creature in this deck, so maybe once in a while you could have a pair of these team up to block a larger flying creature. The last “unique” card in your deck is Ursine Champion, which you have four copies of. This is a common 2/2 Human Berserker for 1G. You can spend 5G to give this creature +3/+3 until end of turn. When you do, this creature becomes a Bear Berserker. It must be exhausting, because you can only activate this ability once each turn. I think the fact that it costs six to activate is enough. Once in a while, on defense, this creature kept an opposing monster from attacking because of Ursine Champion’s activated ability. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with this little guy on turn two.

This deck features twenty-one creatures, which almost feels light to me, but you quickly see that they wanted there to be plenty of room for removal spells and a couple of other goodies. Still, with a very good casting curve and plenty of removal spells, this deck dominates the battlefield better than any of the other planeswalker decks other than the green one.

Let’s talk about the Core Set 2019 cards that you can only find in this planeswalker deck. The lineup starts with kind of a give-up move from Wizards of the Coast. Tattered Mummy, times four. These are neither original cards, nor cards from a long-ago set. This is Tattered Mummy from Amonkhet, released just a year ago. An uninspired entry, to be sure. But, since you just have to make the best of it, you play a Tattered Mummy on turn two after, hopefully, a turn one Diregraf Ghoul and hope to attack with both on turn three. The Mummy makes your opponent lose two life before we even get to combat damage. Not bad at all in the early turns, basically a chump blocker and not much else later in the game.

You get three copies of Arisen Gorgon, a 3/3 uncommon Zombie Gorgon for 1BB. This creature has deathtouch as long as you control a Liliana planeswalker. You won’t though, not very often. Two black mana symbols in the casting cost means nothing to this deck, you’ve got twenty-six Swamps. Just a solid 3/3 for three. The best “new” card in this deck is Gravewaker, a rare 5/5 Bird Spirit with flying for 4BB. This creature has a rather expensive, but powerful, activated ability. Pay 5BB and return a target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped. I’m not saying this card is going to dominate Standard anytime soon (though it’s entirely Standard-legal) but I’d be happy to first-pick it in a booster draft if it were in Core Set 2019 booster packs, which of course it is not. You also get two copies of Liliana’s Spoils, a rare sorcery for 3B. First, your opponent discards a card. That’s a very Liliana-like ability. Then you look at the top five cards of your hand revealing and putting a black card into your hand putting the remaining cards on the bottom of your library in a random order. Random order? Those two words don’t really go together, but you can find a similar rules clause on close to a dozen cards in Core Set 2019.

Finally, there’s your foil planeswalker, Liliana, the Necromancer. She only costs five to play, 3BB, just like the original Liliana planeswalker. Starting loyalty is four. You can add a counter to make a target player lose two life. You can remove a counter to return a target creature card to your hand from the graveyard, and you can remove seven counters to destroy up to two target creatures and then put up to two creature cards from graveyards onto the battlefield. The first two abilities are easy to use multiple times in a game. This planeswalker, like the rest of the foil-only planeswalkers in this set of decks, won’t be appearing in any competitive decks any time soon, but it’s fun enough to play with in this deck.

The rest of the deck features a decent curve that thins out at five with a couple of excellent flyers (excellent for this deck’s intended level of competition) in the form of Vampire Sovereign. The curve continues to six for Gravewaker and Liliana, the Necromancer and then ends with one single seven-drop, Meteor Golem. Meteor Golem is the all-purpose colorless removal spell, in creature-form, that inhabits several of these planeswalker decks. Demon of Catastrophes, at 2BB for a 6/6 flying Demon, is no joke. When you play this card, I suggest sacrificing one of your sad Amonhet-reprints, Tattered Mummy.

Twenty-six creatures makes the Ajani deck that most creature-intensive of the Core Set 2019 planeswalker decks. This deck is so aggressive and so packed with cheap monsters that the product designers at Wizards of the Coast decided to go out on a limb and cut a land from the deck. This one has twenty-five Plains in it, one less than the other planeswalker decks.

This deck has twenty-six creatures and just seven non-creature spells. That’s my kind of aggression! Furthermore, all of the fake, I mean “uniquely designed cards” in this planeswalker decks are more than good enough for “real” Magic. Let’s talk about them:

You get three copies of Court Cleric, an uncommon 1/1 Human Cleric for one white mana with lifelink. Court Cleric also gets +1/+1 if you control an Ajani planeswalker. Obviously this doesn’t happen very often. This should really be a common, but when it comes to the cards that are printed specifically and only for the planeswalker decks, what difference does the rarity make? Rarity is for booster packs and these guys don’t come in booster packs. You get four copies of Silverbeak Griffin, a common 2/2 Griffin for WW that has flying. Simple and very useful. I would love if this card had been included in the normal Core Set 2019 print run.

Ajani’s Influence is a rare sorcery for 2WW. Put two +1/+1 counters on a target creature and then look at the top five cards of your library revealing and putting a white card from those into your hand putting the other cards on the bottom of your library in a random order. This deck has two copies of this spell. It matters that this spell will be countered if the creature you target isn’t on the battlefield when Ajani’s Influence resolves. You have to be careful to play this card in situations where your opponent is less likely to respond with a removal spell.

Serra’s Guardian is a rare 5/5 Angel with flying and vigilance for 4WW. This creature gives other creatures you control vigilance. This card is good enough that I was actually disappointed to look down at the bottom of the card and learn that it’s collector’s number is 284… a little too high of a number to be a regular part of Core Set 2019. It’s a beautiful card and it would have been a sealed deck and booster draft MVP if it had been a regular part of the set and not a special unique-to-planeswalker-decks card.

The only unique card among the seven non-creature spells is your foil planeswalker. Ajani, Wise Counselor costs 3WW and comes with five loyalty. Add two counters to gain a life for each creature you control. You can remove three counters to give creatures you control +2/+2 until end of turn and you can remove nine counters (fairly unlikely in most games) to put X +1/+1 counters on target creature where X is your life total. There’s no other way to say it: this is the least powerful Ajani card ever printed. I’m glad I can’t open a Core Set 2019 booster pack and find this furry turd inside. Having said that, you have to work with what you’ve got. Ajani does some good work in this particular collection of cards. Ajani is the one planeswalker that agrees with me on the overall idea of printing cards that say M19 on them while not actually existing in the normal sense, in not being in booster packs with the normal M19 cards. Ajani is so angry about it that in the artwork on this card, Ajani seems to be trying to use his battleax to remove the offensive M19 set symbol.

In general, I love what this deck is trying to do. The blistering charge of twenty-six creatures starts with six one-drops and ten two-drops. Two of the bears are Ajani’s Pridemate. This card comes close to being the MVP of the deck. You can gain life with Court Cleric, Dwarven Priest, Herald of Faith and Revitalize. I only wish there were more ways to gain life. If Ajani’s Pridemate isn’t the MVP, then it must be Mentor of the Meek. This deck has twenty-one creatures that trigger Mentor. Most of these are cheap enough that you will almost always have an extra mana to spend in order to pay for Mentor’s triggered ability in order to get a free card.

The only downside to this deck’s aggressive plan is the lack of a plan B. In many battles between this deck and the other planeswalker decks, the opponent eventually stabilizes and then Team Ajani finds it difficult to punch through. It’s pretty important to use Mentor of the Meek and Ajani’s Influence to help you dig through the deck for Ajani, Wise Counselor. Even though this deck doesn’t win the most, it is my favorite.

Twenty-one creatures and an assortment of burn spells make up the Sarkhan deck. This deck’s patron planeswalker is called Sarkhan, Dragonsoul. It’s a fitting name, the deck itself has the soul of a Dragon with nine of those amazing flying lizards including Magic’s original big daddy, Shivan Dragon.

Each of the five Core Set 2019 planeswalker deck come with eleven cards that you can’t find in any other product. Is it more cool that these decks have special cards that aren’t in booster packs or more annoying that Wizards would use these cards to force collectors to buy these planeswalker decks? This deck’s unique cards are more interesting than in most of the other decks. It starts with four copies of Kargan Dragonrider, a common 2/2 for 1R that has flying as long as you control a Dragon. Okay, better get me some Dragons, then. No problem, this deck also comes with three copies of Sarkhan’s Whelp, an uncommon 2/2 Dragon with flying for 2R. Whenever you activate the ability of a Sarkhan planeswalker this creature deals one damage to any target. That would be a more interesting ability if there were more likelihood of you having Sarkhan in play at the same time as Sarkhan’s Whelp. It never happened in the eleven games I played with the deck. I do love, however, the combination of Sarkhan’s Whelp and Kargan Dragonrider. I love the idea of a 2/2 Dragon for 2R. This card could easily have been included in the (ahem) real print run of Core Set 2019.

Beyond the Dragonriders and the Whelps, there is only one other creature unique to the Sarkhan planeswalker deck, and it’s a reprint all the way from Magic’s original set. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Shivan Dragon, a rare 5/5 Dragon for 4RR with flying. You can give Shivan Dragon +1/+0 until end of turn for one red mana. Twenty-five years ago, this monster was so treasured by Magic players that trading a Mox for a Shivan Dragon was considered an excellent trade on both sides. It’s interesting to me that Shivan Dragon is the only great old card that WOTC chose to bring back for the planeswalker decks. In the recent past, Wizards also reused Sengir Vampire and Mahamoti Djinn in intro decks.

You also get two copies of Sarkhan’s Dragonfire, a rare sorcery for 3RR. This spell deals three damage to any target, then you look at the top five cards of your library revealing and putting a red card into your hand putting the remaining cards on the bottom of your library in a random order. Five mana is a bit much, at sorcery speed, to deal three damage. This card, however, not only replaces itself, and can replace itself with an even better card.

Sarkhan, Dragonsoul is the name of your foil planeswalker. It’s the reason you bought this deck in the first place. Sarkhan, Dragonsoul costs 4RR and comes with five loyalty. You can add two counters to deal one damage to each opponent and each creature your opponents control. You can remove three counters to deal four damage to a target player or planeswalker. Finally, you can remove nine counters to search your library for any number of Dragon creature cards and put them directly onto the battlefield. I didn’t get a chance to use Sarkhan’s ultimate in the eleven games I played with this deck, but it sounds like a lot of fun. Sarkhan doesn’t give these Dragons haste, but maybe you’ll still have one or both of your Goblin Motivators in play when the Dragons show up…

This deck looks better on paper than it turns out to be in battles with the other four planeswalker decks. Your opening salvo of creatures is decent enough if you follow a turn two Kargan Dragonrider with a turn three Sarkhan’s Whelp. Other openings are weaker. Five three-drops to follow up eight one and two-drops seems pretty good. This deck has twenty-six Mountains and you need them. Every turn you miss a land drop on the way to six mana is a big deal. Obviously red is not the best mana ramp color in Magic.

Nine Dragons. Keep telling yourself that you have nine Dragons while you’re struggling in the part of the game between where you have three Mountains and where you have six. The big monsters are coming, but they get the battlefield a little slowly. The good news is that there are removal spells. Two Shocks, two Lightning Strike and two Electrify. That’s a heap of good electric lovin’! Trumpet Blast isn’t amazing in this deck because the deck has trouble keeping a large number of creatures alive long enough to make it useful. Let me tell you what one-of’s are valuable in this deck. Thud and Act of Treason. Steal the creature with Act of Treason, then sacrifice it with Thud to kill your opponent’s next biggest creature. Fiery Finish can kill just about anything other than a Pridemate that got out of control with +1/+1 counters. Be careful, this can happen!

All the cool kids like blue, and the Tezzeret planeswalker deck contains a lot of the things that make people like blue. There are flying creatures. There are ways to draw cards and gain card advantage in other ways. The bottom line is that blue is tricky, and a lot of people like that. Blue has long been aligned with artifacts, and that’s what the planeswalker Tezzeret has always been about. This deck, as one might expect from a blue deck, works in completely different ways from the other four decks in this set. More than half of the deck’s twenty creatures are artifact creatures. That’s good news for Gearsmith Prodigy, a 1/2 for one blue mana that gets +1/+0 if you control an artifact. This deck has six artifacts it can play on turn two and another six it can play on turn three. That kind of synergy helps to get this deck off to a good start in many games.

The blue deck’s unique cards, cards that do not appear in Core Set 2019 booster packs, begin with three copies of Tezzeret’s Strider. This is an uncommon 3/3 artifact creature Golem for three mana of any color. If you control a Tezzeret planeswalker, this creature gains menace. It’s hard for the planeswalker-focused abilities to get turned on in this deck because you only have one planeswalker in your deck and it costs six mana.

You get four copies of an artifact unique to this planeswalker deck. Pendulum of Patterns is a common artifact for two mana of any color. You gain three life when this artifact enters the battlefield. Later in the game, you can spend five mana and tap and sacrifice the Pendulum to draw a card. In games between these planeswalker decks, this little artifact comes in handy because every game goes long enough for you to trade in the Pendulum for another card.

Tezzeret’s Gatebreaker is a rare artifact for four mana of any color. When this enters the battlefield you look at the top five cards of your library and reveal either a blue or artifact card and put it into your hand. The remaining cards go on the bottom of your library in a random order. If you spend 5U and tap and sacrifice Tezzeret’s Gatebreaker creatures you control can’t be blocked this turn. This is a good payoff if you can stay alive long enough. Once your army is bigger than your opponent’s life points, sacrifice the Gatebreaker and attack unblocked with your team.

The best “unique” Core Set 2019 card for blue is Riddlemaster Sphinx, a rare 5/5 Sphinx for 4UU with flying. When this creature enters the battlefield you may return a target creature an opponent controls to their hand. It would be more fun if you could bounce one of your own creatures, or better yet, a target permanent, but Riddlemaster Sphinx is still a gigantic flyer for a reasonable mana cost.

Your foil mythic planeswalker is Tezzeret, Cruel Machinist. This card costs 4UU to play and comes with four loyalty counters. Add a counter to draw a card. The second ability costs no loyalty counters, turn a target artifact you control into a 5/5 creature until end of turn. Remove seven counters and you can put any number of cards from your hand face down, they are 5/5 artifact creatures. Nothing wrong with a plus one ability of drawing a card. The second ability is a valid strategy at certain points in the game. A more powerful planeswalker would permanently turn an artifact into a 5/5, just sayin’. If the third ability also gave these face down 5/5 artifact creatures haste this card might have been powerful enough for a serious combo deck.

This deck’s biggest problem, when it battles against the other planeswalker decks, is staying alive long enough to play Tezzeret. This deck likes drawing its one copy of Manalith. Mana acceleration really helps this deck. You get three copies of Core Set 2019’s best blue removal card, Dwindle. Your two copies of Skyscanner can help block up the ground briefly while also drawing you a card. Exclusion Mage buys you time but you only have one copy of him. Skilled Animator can turn Pendulum of Patterns or Field Creeper into a very big monster on turn three. Skilled Animator was an important part of the games I won with this deck. There weren’t enough wins, though. Maybe if Tezzeret’s Gatebreaker had also been an 0/4 artifact creature wall or something like that. Any way you cut it, the Tezzeret deck is the most challenging of the five planeswalker decks.

My Battles

I played a match between each of these five decks. Ten matches altogether. I never played the same deck two matches in a row in order to keep myself from getting too familiar with one deck and possibly accidentally giving it an edge. Because I’m a total nerd, I wrote down the complete play-by-play of these ten matches. Hey it’s only an extra 7600 words. You think my editor wants to include that text brick in this story? Would it be fun to read? The answer to both questions is ‘no.’ However, this play-by-play gives me an excellent record to use for analysis.

Sarkhan and Tezzeret had the least match wins but each lost a pair of matches that went to game three indicating a close match.

Your mileage may vary. You could have entirely different results playing the decks against each other. I could do another run-through and have different results. I have to say, though, after having played these matches, I would be surprised if the best deck wasn’t either the Liliana or the Vivien deck, no matter how many times you played it out.

The average game length for Liliana was 11 turns. It was 10.5 for Tezzeret, 9.7 for Ajani, 9.4 for Vivien. Sarkhan had the shortest average game length with an average of 8.2 turns. The longest match was between Tezzeret and Liliana. Their three game match took fourteen, eleven and SEVENTEEN turns. Vivien was involved in the two fastest matches. Each took only eighteen turns for both games against Ajani and against Liliana.

Final Analysis

I resent the money-grab by Wizards of the Coast, the requirement to buy these planeswalker decks in order to collect most of the cards above card number 280. Of course, if you want ALL the cards in Core Set 2019 you have to acquire the buy-a-box promo Nexus of Fate. I have no idea how I get my hands on card numbers 307, 308, 311, 313 and 314, also known as Sun Sentinel, Air Elemental, Waterknot, Radiating Lightning and Llanowar Elves. It’s an awkward situation that WOTC should have avoided. [Manager’s Note: These cards are exclusive to the Welcome Decks, which can be found at your Local Gaming Store!]

These five decks are slow-poke decks that are each very linear and easy to play. They function as a good product for newer players and the decks play against each other well enough to make for some interesting games. These decks are not ready-for-primetime but they are a fun thing you can do with Core Set 2019.